Ange Postecoglou admits that Celtic will have to ‘wait and see’ if Daizen Maeda will be fit for Saturday’s Scottish Cup quarter-final against Hearts after the winger limped off injured during Wednesday night’s 3-1 win in the league.
The visitors stunned the cinch Premiership champions when Josh Ginnelly opened the scoring in Glasgow with a goal that was originally chopped off for offside before overturned by VAR.
Maeda then restored parity midway through the first half as the winger steered home compatriot Kyogo Furuhashi’s cross in similar circumstances to the opener. Again, the linesman raised his flag for offside before the video referee overturned the decision.
Maeda’s evening was cut short soon after when the forward picked up a knock, and the two teams went in level at the break before Furuhashi gave his side an invaluable lead on the hour-mark.
“It’s a knock on the knee so we will just have to see,” Postecoglou told BBC Sportsound. “Obviously it’s a short turnaround to Saturday and we will have to see how he is. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.”
Substitute Sead Haksabanovic then removed any lingering doubts over the final result by curling in an excellent third to ensure Postecoglou’s 100th game in charge of Celtic ended in victory.
“It was well-earned,” the Greek-Australian added. “We had to work hard for the three points tonight. We weren’t at our fluent best and we had to work ourselves into the game.
“We didn’t really hit a good rhythm from the start. I have got to take some responsibility for that because we obviously made some changes, which always disrupts things.
“I thought we looked disjointed at the start so we had to earn it. But ultimately the boys again have shown a really strong mentality and we have scored three excellent goals to get the job done.
“I thought Hearts were aggressive, as they should be, but we can only focus on ourselves. If we are playing our football then I think we can cope with whatever the opposition throw at us.”
“I think we rushed things at the start of the game and that allowed them to get some momentum in the game.”
